Log

Warning! Very very old writeup, and notably all over the place. Probably dates back to 2022... Keeping here temporarily for archival of old-writeup-style reasons.

https://theselfhostingblog.com/posts/how-to-completely-self-host-standard-notes/#

Certbot for SSL certificate, using Let’s Encrypt. This is horribly straightforward, plus it ran so ridiculously smoothly… nice.

sudo apt install certbot
sudo apt install python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx

To read soon: http://nginx.org/en/docs/beginners_guide.html

For webpages,

sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo apt install python3-sphinx

Copied most of content from old server to new one.

For password authentication,

sudo apt install apache2-utils
sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/.htpasswd user2 # -c to create new file

location /restricted {
  auth_basic "Restricted access";
  auth_basic_user_file /etc/apache2/.htpasswd;
}

location /offlimits {
  deny all;
  return 404;
}

Add git server: tbc. Need to manage keys which can be a hassle. Need to fix permissions on the server as well.

Docker:

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45023363/
# what-is-docker-io-in-relation-to-docker-ce-and-docker-ee
sudo apt install docker.io

# To bypass permission issues
sudo usermod -aG docker <USER>
# Relogin to apply 'docker' group permissions

# Hello world
docker run hello-world

# Install Docker Compose
sudo apt install docker-compose

Find out disk space: apt install ncdu Check permissions: ls -l

Issues with git clone, turns out is clock time off. Use the ntp package with apt install ntp. Or not. Can still change timezone:

date -R # see datetime
timedatectl list-timezones # see all available timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Singapore

Need to allow read access to CA certificates:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/ssl
sudo chmod 755 /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
sudo chmod 710 /etc/ssl/private

# Set source of CA certs
git config --global http.sslCAinfo /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

Back to standard notes. With my current setup, only supports up to “3.7” for Docker. So gotta change it:

git clone https://github.com/standardnotes/syncing-server.git
vim syncing-server/docker-compose.yml

Takes a while, seems like it installs mariaDb, and uses Ruby at the moment. The current disk space taken up so far is 230 MiB…

Can consider hosting the web interface as well: https://github.com/standardnotes/web

Register through this: https://app.standardnotes.org/

Got this error:

Pulling db (mysql:5.6)...
5.6: Pulling from library/mysql
ERROR: no matching manifest for linux/arm64/v8 in the manifest list entries

Need to start MySQL service:

sudo ufw allow mysql
sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl enable mysql # start upon reboot

This doesn’t work = Docker was looking for manifest at library/mysql.

docker run --name=mysqlnotes -d -p 3306:3306 mysql/mysql-server:latest
docker logs mysqlnotes 2>&1 | grep GENERATED # grab root pwd once healthy
# [Entrypoint] GENERATED ROOT PASSWORD: @6w*U@=419oP+h#cjG43=kLTX.Hqf2S7

docker exec -it mysqlnotes mysql -uroot -p
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'localhostpw_d';
CREATE DATABASE standard_notes_db;
CREATE USER 'std_notes_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'note_default_pwd';
exit

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --net host --env-file=.env standardnotes/syncing-server

FINALLY, SUCCESS! The blocker was the requirement to use HTTPS for syncing server (or could also work over HTTP without an invalid cert). Syncing server is: https://sync.pyuxiang.com

Extensions: Followed the instructions here:

https://theselfhostingblog.com/posts/how-to-completely-self-host-standard-notes/

Sync with mobile is via desktop app, to configure settings directly on cloud.

The rest of the night was on exporting Evernote notes and migrating to Standard Notes. Conversion links: https://dashboard.standardnotes.org/tools

Raspberry Pi somehow terminated by docker containers with Error 255.

1. See all containers using the command: sudo docker ps -a
2. Kill the autostart SQL database using: sudo service mysql stop. Can verify service using sudo netstat -nlpt |grep 3306
3. Start the desired MySQL container: sudo docker start a0dee. Can verify database using root@localhost:localhostpw_d and show databases; or select * from mysql.users.
4. Start the SN server: sudo docker start d8516b. If still does not work, verify port forwarding to the Raspberry is up.